President Barack Obama will tell you that he hasn’t had the best luck with cars in the past. In fact, he claims, he’s had some real clunkers along the way to the White House.

“The car I learned to drive on was my grandfather’s Ford Granada,” the president told an Indianapolis radio station during the campaign. “It may be the worst car that Detroit ever built. … This thing was a tin can. They wanted to keep the cars big, so they made them out of tin foil. … You basically couldn’t go over 80 (miles per hour) without the thing getting out of control.”

Now, we find out, courtesy of Bloomberg News that Obama drove a Fiat during college. During a meeting on Chrysler’s planned tie-up with Fiat SpA, the president “recalled the mechanical problems that plagued his old car.”

Better luck may await the President, however. Obama bought a Ford Escape hybrid during the campaign and regularly touts the vehicle including most recently at a White House event where he was surrounded by other auto CEOs and Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally.